Grigory Kulik

Grigory Ivanovich Kulik (9 November 1890-24 August 1950) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union during World War II.

Biography
Grigory Ivanovich Kulik was born on 9 November 1890 in Dudnikovo, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire (now Poltava Raion, Ukraine). He joined the Imperial Russian Army in 1912 and then the Bolsheviks in 1917 and the Red Army in 1918. Kulik commanded Soviet artillery at Tsaritsyn during the Russian Civil War, and he became the head of the Red Army's Main Artillery Directorate in 1937. He commanded the directorate until 1941, and he survived the Great Purge due to being a radical military conservative and a staunch Stalinist. Kulik also commanded Soviet artillery during the Winter War with Finland, and he was called a "murderous buffoon" and an incompetent commander. However, he saved 150,000 Polish Army prisoners of war from the 1940 Katyn massacre, using his friendship with Joseph Stalin to convince him to do so. In 1946, he was dismissed from his posts after the NKVD overheard him grumbling that Soviet politicians stole the credit for winning World War II from the generals. He was arrested in 1947, and he was executed for treason in 1950. Nikita Khrushchev promoted him to Marshal of the Soviet Union after rehabilitating him in 1956.